Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(26)

The Hutt interrupts her with a gabble of laughter. “Sty-uka! Kuba nobata Granya Ad-mee-rall.” The box translates: “LOOK AT YOU. YOU ARE NO GRAND ADMIRAL.”

“I assure you, I am, and I will retake my Empire. If you allow me to pass through, I will have much to offer you once I regain control…”

But she already hears it in her own voice: She’s bargaining from a place of weakness. Niima wants to be served, yes, and she wants to be the Queen Worm, but alternatively, if Sloane has to bow and scrape and act like a wriggling fly trapped on the fat beast’s tongue, then she seems weak, too weak to be taken seriously. She has to be humble while still seeming powerful. This is not something she knows how to do—how to perform as such a living contradiction. How does that even work?

Answer: It doesn’t. Again the Hutt bellows with laughter. She roars in her gargle-shriek tongue and the speaker returns a translation: “YOU WILL RETAKE NOTHING. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER ME.” To her servants, the Hutt screams: “TAKE THEM. STRIP THEM. SHEAR THEM. HAVE THEIR MINDS BROKEN.”

No, no, no. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. The slaves underneath Niima gently ease her to the stone, and one by one they come for Sloane and Brentin. He flashes her a frightened look, his hands forming into fists.

But Sloane gives him a gentle headshake and mouths four words: I can fix this.

“Wait,” she says, holding up both hands. The Hutt-slaves do not stop coming, but they slow down, creeping toward her on the balls of their feet. Teeth bared, air hissing between them. “Gallius Rax is a pretender to the throne and he is weak. I will be Emperor.”

Niima squawks, and the translator box barks: “HOLD.”

The slaves stop. They freeze in place, as if automatons. They don’t even blink. Niima’s voice lowers, almost as if she’s confiding in Sloane, though the translator box knows no such inflection; when it decodes the response in Basic, it does so in the same mechanized monotone: “I ALREADY HAVE A DEAL WITH COUNSELOR RAX. YOU ARE TOO LATE, GRAND ADMIRAL.”

A deal with Rax.

Of course she has a deal.

He has to get through her territory somehow. He’s given her something. Or offered something.

Sloane just has to find out what.

Once more the slaves surge toward her, grabbing at her wrists, her jaw, her throat. There’s the flash of a blade, and she thinks, Don’t fight, wait it out, keep talking, keep digging.

Then something turns inside her. She’s been on this forsaken planet for months now. She’s tired, rawboned, and in pain. She is an admiral in the Imperial Navy and the only one deserving of ruling the Empire.

I will not be abused anymore. Forget bargaining from weakness.

It’s time to try the other way. It is time to remember the strength of a grand admiral.

Sloane roars, and throws a punch. Her knuckles connect with the trachea of one of Niima’s Hutt-slaves, and he staggers back, clutching at his throat and keening in a high-pitched whine. All her NCB pugilistic training comes back to her, and she adopts a strong stance with one foot behind her and starts swinging as if each punch has to save her life—and she fears that each punch has to do exactly that. Her fists connect. A jaw snaps. A tooth scatters. A slave grabs a hank of her hair and she traps his arm, twisting it so hard she feels the bone break—the freak screams and drops, writhing like a spider set aflame.

They keep coming. She keeps ducking, moving, punching.

But she’s getting fatigued. Pain throbs in her middle, radiating out like the ripples after a heavy rock hits calm water.

The Hutt screams and the box translates: “STOP.”

Sloane sees Brentin—he is against the ground, his arms bent painfully behind him. Blood pools beneath his busted nose. Sloane thinks: Forget him. Let him go. He has served his purpose. And yet a part of her doesn’t want to. Loyalty has to count for something. And Sloane doesn’t want to be alone. Not yet. Not here.

So she waits. She holds up her hands.

And it’s good that she does.

Because more of the Hutt’s servants are crawling down out of the tunnels. Dozens of them now. A few of them with blasters, many with knives and clubs, all their weapons bound with tendon and bone.

I can’t fight them all. I just can’t.

“What has Rax offered you?” she asks the Hutt.

The Hutt gargles a reply. The box translates: “WE PERFORM…WORK FOR HIM. HE PROVIDES US WITH WEAPONS, EQUIPMENT, SUPPLIES. WHATEVER I ASK.”

Work? What work is the Hutt doing for Rax? That means her role goes beyond merely allowing him passage. Suddenly it dawns on her: What Anchorite Kolob said, about children being stolen? What if the Hutt’s people are doing the abducting? The Empire needs children…

The slave-boys advance upon her. Slowly. Step by step. Their blades swish at the air. Their blasters thrust and point.

“Children,” she says. “You bring him children.”

The Hutt says nothing. But that silence is telling.

“Did Rax tell you where he’s going?” Sloane asks. “Did he tell you what he’s doing out there beyond your canyons?”

One-word response: “NO.”

The Hutt’s face betrays the monotone of the translator box—the slug’s eye, the one ringed by glittering metal embedded in the flesh, opens wider.

A sign of curiosity, Sloane thinks. Good. She presses the advantage: “Don’t you want to know?”